The present invention relates to a hand-operated hose for atomizing a liquid for the treatment of plants.
Hand-operated hoses are already known for this application, each comprising, at the end of a flexible liquid feed-pipe, a rigid handle, which is provided with an inlet valve and a control trigger for this valve and which is extended by a rigid tube carrying an atomizing head at its end.
Generally, a filter has to be provided upstream of the atomizing head of the hand-operated hoses of this kind; experience has shown that this filter becomes clogged rather rapidly; however, in hand-operated hoses of this type that have been hitherto developed, cleaning of the filter is a long and cumbersome operation, since it necessitates the dismantling of several elements; this is particularly the case when the filter is placed, in a known manner, at the level of the connection between the reservoir for the liquid under pressure, on the one hand, and the corresponding end of the flexible feed-pipe of the hose, on the other hand.
The hand-operated hoses of this known type are not entirely satisfactory either from the point of view of the possibilities they offer for aligning the atomizing head with respect to the axial direction of the hose, particularly of its rigid tube. In a prior embodiment, in particular, the atomizing head is mounted swivelling about an axis forming an angle of 90 degrees with the rigid tube of the hose; thus it is possible to let the atomizing head swivel with respect to the rigid tube of the hose, as a rule by an angle of between minus ninety degrees and plus ninety degrees; however, the embodiment is such that the atomizing head cannot be brought, and then kept, in a definite angular position with respect to the rigid tube of the hose, except by two successive operations, one of loosening a screw and the other of tightening it. In practice, therefore, it is impossible, or at least cumbersome and relatively long, to let the atomizing head be passed through by a major solid angle ahead of the hose, which is supposed to be kept in a fixed direction by its user.
The present invention makes it possible to develop, for the application mentioned, an improved hand-operated hose, which does not possess the various shortcomings of the hand-operated hoses that have been hitherto developed, the list, given above, of these various shortcomings being, moreover, not exhaustive.